Exit the 12th Doctor: Peter Capaldi says he's moving on

A few days after Doctor Who fans lost Sir John Hurt, one of the finest actors to ever play the Doctor, they also lost the character's current incarnation.

Peter Capaldi is leaving the role, the actor announced on BBC Radio.

Series 10, which hits TV screens in April, "will be my last," Capaldi told presenter Jo Whiley on Monday. "I've never done one job for three years, so I feel its time to move on ... I can't thank everyone enough, it's been cosmic."

Capaldi revealed that he'd been asked by the BBC to stay on, but feared that he would not be "giving it my best." His last episode will be the 2017 Christmas special.

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That means we'll likely see a regeneration at the end of the year -- and that the hunt for the 13th Doctor (or 14th, if you include Hurt's retroactive 'War Doctor' role) is officially underway.

Series 10 is also the last for showrunner Steven Moffat -- and the first for the Doctor's new companion Bill, played by Pearl Mackie.

So the quest for the new Doctor will almost certainly be undertaken by Moffat's replacement, Chris Chibnall -- a Who veteran and creator of the procedural hit Broadchurch (starring former Doctor David Tennant).

The lead actor and showrunner departing at the same time is becoming a tradition for the series, which was rebooted in 2005.

Moffat's predecessor, Russel T Davies, ran the show for five years then left the show when Tennant stepped down -- clearing the way for Moffat to reinvent the role with Tennant's successor, the wildly popular Matt Smith.

But Capaldi's tenure has been more controversial, with some critics claiming Moffat's scripts had run out of steam five years into his own tenure. Capaldi spent two seasons in the TARDIS with Clara, the companion left over from the end of the Smith era.